Food at affordable prices

Food prices, according to a Central Bank survey quoted in The Island on Monday, have been on a steady increase for the past several weeks. Among the food items with soaring prices are rice, vegetables, fish and bread.

Rice continues to sell at as much as Rs. 40 a kilo. Prices of vegetables, such as tomatoes, have increased by 50 per cent.

Prior to the General Election, which saw the advent of the UNF dispensation, many may have thought that the high prices that characterised the last phase of the PA regime were only transient. The PA went to the extent of accusing the UNP of manipulating prices with the help of its business allies to discredit the government.

The UNP blamed it all on the bad economic policy of the PA.

However, high prices have survived the change of government and the people continue to pay more for less food.

This shows that the root causes of high food prices are far from addressed, let alone remedied. Numerous studies have been conducted on this phenomenon and solutions proposed. Take, for example, the vegetable prices. Even when there is a glut in rural areas and farmers commit suicide unable to market their produce, vegetable prices remain high in areas like Colombo.

Successive governments have promised to provide storage, marketing and transport facilities to farmers to overcome this problem. But precious little has so far been done.

Unrestricted imports, too, have dealt a blow to local producers. Onion and potato growers are the worst hit. It may be argued that imports are essential by way of controlling prices as and when prices of local products record steep increases.

But this is an exercise that requires extreme care. To flood the local market with cheap imports is only to ruin the local production and to drive local producers to suicide. What has befallen the coconut oil producers because of the deluge of substitutes is also a case in point. Sri Lanka should learn from countries like India, where local food producers are protected and given encouragement by the state, to ensure food security.

High coconut prices provide an example for how failure of the state to adopt safeguards is ruining a vital industry. Besides factors such as the alleged grab by exporters of the nut, the high prices, it is said, have resulted from scarcity caused by the devastation wreaked on coconut plantations by real estate dealers and high cost of production that has rendered many a palm unattended and thereby less productive.

This also holds good for the country’s staple food - rice. Paddy lands are being filled by real estate dealers or farmers themselves. Farmers have also opted for other crops that bring in better income. Cheap imports have also eaten into the vitals of the industry. Rice cultivation is no longer attractive to the youth because of the outdated mode of production.

Field mechanisation to make it attractive to the youth, a ‘grower-friendly’ guaranteed price coupled with better marketing, storage and other facilities such as seed paddy, manure etc. at concessional prices are some of the measures that the industry desperately needs for survival, leave alone enhancing production and thereby slashing prices.

Governments are usually urged to import food to overcome high prices. Politically motivated, governments cannot afford to do otherwise. But this augurs ill for the country in the long run. For, local industries suffer as a result. A balance therefore has to be struck.

There is certainly a point beyond which the people cannot tighten their belts. Hunger and frustration defy reasoning. The UNF government with the mini polls drawing nearer cannot be oblivious to this fact. The battle it is fighting to put the economy on a firm footing and its efforts to make peace with the intransigent LTTE are to be appreciated. Yet, it cannot absolve itself of its responsibility of bringing food prices down to affordable levels.

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